This invention relates generally to the field of information delivery systems, and in its preferred embodiments, to the delivery of information in audible form.
Traditionally, news and other information have been delivered to consumers through the print and electronic broadcast media and through postal service delivery of printed or written material. More recently, "on-line" information services, such as CompuServe.RTM., America On-line.RTM. and Prodigy.RTM. have become available, allowing consumers to access information databases over a public switched telephone network via personal computers equipped with modems. While usage of these media and services for the delivery of news and other information has been very successful, each substantially fails to deliver selectable information in an audible form under end-user control, thereby enabling none of them to fully meet the information delivery needs of consumers.
For instance, the print media offer pre-packaged information of interest to a, presumably, large segment of consumers. However, since the information is presented in textual form with related graphical illustrations, use of the media occupies both the eyes and hands of the user in order to receive news and other information. Thus, print media cannot deliver information to a consumer while the consumer's eyes and hands are otherwise occupied, such as when driving a car. Additionally, because of the time required for printing and physical delivery of printed material, the news and other information may be more than some five to ten hours old by the time it is received by a consumer.
The electronic broadcast media, on the other hand, offer information which is generally more current than that delivered by the print media, but due to the need to broadcast the information, they are generally not tailorable to the needs of individual consumers. In other words, each consumer receives the same information as every other consumer instead of receiving only the information which he/she is interested in receiving. Furthermore, in some cases, news information can be delivered in real time, as the events are occurring. However, in most cases, the information is available to consumers only when a broadcaster decides to present it, which may or may not be at a time when the consumer desires or is able to receive (i.e., by viewing or listening) the information. For example, in the case of a radio broadcast, the user may be unable to listen to the broadcast because their mind is previously occupied performing a task of some sort and, in the case of a television broadcast, the user may be unable to see the broadcast because his/her eyes are occupied by the task.
In the alternative, electronic on-line information services are able to provide a tailored package of information to individual consumers. Such services can allow a user to select information from the provider's database to match the user's interests at the moment. Additionally, the currency of the information can be as good as that of the electronic broadcast media and the information, typically, can be accessed by the user whenever it is convenient for the user to do so. However, current services only provide the information in textual and graphical form for presentation on computer monitors. Thus, the eyes and, usually, the hands of a user must be otherwise unoccupied in order for the user to access and view the information.
Recently, a new type of information delivery service has emerged which combines some of the properties of the print media and some of the properties of the electronic on-line services. This service delivers information tailorable to specific consumers via an electronic data network, or a public switched telephone network, in standard facsimile format for printing on a user's facsimile machine. Because the information is ultimately presented to the user in printed form like the print media, this type of delivery system also requires users to have their hands and eyes otherwise unoccupied if they are to receive the information.
Therefore, there is a need in the industry for a method and an apparatus for delivering user-selected information in audible form which addresses these and other related, and unrelated, problems.